Uploaded to this blog post, you will find an audio podcast from the MetLife Foundation National Arts Forum Series Culminating Event: The Role of Arts Education in Lifelong Productivity featuring arts education innovator Sir Ken Robinson from the 2007 Americans for the Arts Annual Convention.

This session featured an interview with Sir Ken Robinson, followed by a panel of respondents on the relationship between arts education and workforce development.  Exploring this theme allowed for a comprehensive discussion of the central role the arts can play in helping to create a workforce capable of achieving corporate and citizenship objectives.

Sir Ken Robinson, author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources. Now based in Los Angeles, he has worked with national governments in Europe and Asia, with international agencies, Fortune 500 companies, not-for-profit corporations and some of the world's leading cultural organizations. They include the Royal Shakespeare Company, Sir Paul McCartney's Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, the Royal Ballet, the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, the European Commission, UNESCO, the Council of Europe, the J  Paul Getty Trust and the Education Commission of the States. For ten years he was Professor of Education at the University of Warwick in England and is now Professor Emeritus.